I started re-reading Alfred Bester's Tiger Tiger today. I had about to re-read the graphic novel version of it (by Howard Chaykin) but I only have volume one of a two volume set of these. Although years ago Heavy Metal ran the first 20 pages of volume two, I've never seen it available anyway.

Anyway, the story is right ripper of revenge, intrigue and human limits, and the original text version is just fine as well.

I saw Spielberg's version of War of the Worlds yesterday over at Jenny's. I was reasonably impressed - it could have been much worse!

Now of course the H.G. Wells's novel was one of the first fiction books that I can recall reading (the other being Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, both from the school library) and I guess it left an impression on me. Always been a fan of Wells every since, and always found adaptations of his work of interest, even though they aren't always as faithful as they could have been. Often, the original gets lost in translation. That almost happens here.

Without H.G. Wells, without his War of the Worlds, there would have been no: George Pal film version, or Jeff Wayne double album; either version of Invaders from Mars; Independence Day (an obvious rip-off) or Earth vs The Flying Saucers and imitators et al; John Christopher's Tripod trilogy; far fewer of the American SF pulps from the 1920s and 30s; none of the Aliens series of films; Star Wars (probably, though it really descended via Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon); New Worlds; P. Craig Russell drawing Killraven, and much more.

Wells's book was less about the Martians as such, and more with how humans behave under pressure, about the thin line between "civilisation" and "barbarity", themes which he repeated in books like The War in the Air. It also hi-lights the attitudes that western culture (as a whole) had (in the late 19th century) to animals and other cultures.

( The Film - with spoilers )